


Uncles

by avantegarda



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Gen, Kids, Reminiscing, should also probably tag this, three cheers for middle-earth's oddest family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 09:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18736375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avantegarda/pseuds/avantegarda
Summary: Elrond and Elros were never able to meet most of their foster-father's brothers. But Maglor's happy to fill them in on what they missed.





	Uncles

**Author's Note:**

> I'm as surprised as anyone that I wrote something not set in my Victorian AU, but apparently this is what's happening right now.
> 
> A slightly worse form of this story appeared on my Tumblr blog.

We had it down to a science by a certain point: the best time to ask Father for stories about his family was late in the evening, after he’d had a few (not too many) glasses of wine and received several dozen compliments on his singing. Uncle Maedhros was harder to persuade, as he tended to shut up like a clam whenever anyone mentioned Valinor, but it seemed to bring Father some peace to talk about his dear departed brothers. And he had no shortage of tales that he was happy to share with us, even though some of them were not entirely suitable for the ears of adolescent boys.

 

“It was on just such a winter solstice night as this that your uncle Celegorm had his absolute worst idea for a gift for my father...but then, I suppose I’ve told you this one already.”

“You haven’t!”

“Very well, then. Celegorm fancied himself quite an expert at the art of gift-giving, and on every occasion where presents were suitable he would come home with some sort of exotic creature that no one but him could possibly care for. The worst one, though, was in his hundredth year, when we were exchanging gifts at the Midwinter Festival and Celegorm came down the stairs, cheerful as you please, with the strangest creature I’d ever seen in his arms.”

“What was it?”

“Ah, you may well ask! Nothing any of us had ever seen before, I can tell you. Rather like the offspring of an eagle and a lizard. We were all horrified, of course, but Celegorm explained it was a bird of prey from the far south, called a...what was it? Ah, a  _ velociraptor,  _ and he insisted it was quite harmless. Certainly it  _ seemed  _ to be, until he tried to hand it to Father. The minute it left Celegorm’s hands, it shrieked like a demon, bit out a chunk of Father’s hair, and flew up and crashed into the chandelier. It took all of us working together to get it down, since any time one of us tried to climb up and get it untangled it would nearly take our fingers off. Needless to say, we sent it back south the next day, and Celegorm limited himself to giving everyone songbirds the year after.

“The moral of  _ that  _ story, my boys, is to never give anyone a present with claws.”

 

“It’s entirely possible that I shouldn’t be telling you this next story...and of course, now that I’ve said that, you won’t rest until you’ve heard every detail, will you?”

“Of course.”

“Thought not. Very well, here goes. Your uncle Caranthir, you know, fancied himself the cleverest businessman on the continent, and indeed there was hardly any reason to think otherwise considering the amount of gold he acquired from his trading with the Dwarves. And I’m sure I’ve also told you that he had quite a tendency to hold grudges. Alas, one of those grudges was against your illustrious ancestor, King Thingol.”

“For the Quenya ban?”

“That, as well as being related to our cousin Finrod and his brothers, who Caranthir disliked for reasons far too complicated to explain. But that’s not terribly important. What’s important is the absolutely ridiculous way this grudge manifested itself when I was visiting Thargelion one very cold and dull winter. 

“Your uncle Caranthir had acquired, in one of his better business arrangements, several bottles of some Dwarven whiskey that were far stronger than even the excellent spirits we Noldor are renowned for, and his idea of entertaining me was to see how much of the foul stuff each of us could drink. Boys, the look that your Uncle Maedhros is giving you means that you must  _ never  _ drink Dwarven whiskey, no matter how much of a bargain it is. Anyway, after he’d had nearly an entire bottle, Caranthir declared that he could sell absolutely anything to anyone, and he was happy to prove it when I asked him to.”

“He chose something awful, didn’t he.”

“Right you are, Elrond. When I requested proof of his abilities, he strode off to his bedroom and returned with the most hideous, graying pair of undershorts I had ever seen. ‘These,’ he declared proudly, ‘are the most awful drawers I own, and I am going to make the King of Doriath pay me for them.’ And so he sat down and composed a beautiful letter explaining that Noldorin underclothes were the finest on the continent and he would be happy to send Thingol an example every month in exchange for a small fortune, and then proceeded to pack up his drawers and the letter and send them on their way.”

Elros let out a shriek of laughter. “What did King Thingol think of  _ that? _ ”

“Ah, that’s the best part! Three weeks later, Caranthir received a parcel from Doriath containing not only the offending drawers, but a letter and a small silk bag containing quite an elegant silver necklace. The letter, written by the King himself, said that it would be well worth parting with some of his most expensive jewelry if Caranthir agreed to never send him any of his dirty laundry ever again. So you see Caranthir quite proved his point, and he wore that silver necklace with pride at nearly every formal occasion for the rest of his life.”

 

“Everyone thinks of your uncle Curufin as a cold and harsh chap, which is entirely the reputation he wanted to cultivate, but what he would  _ not  _ want you to know is that he was quite the romantic once. When he was chasing after Lindë, who went on to become your dear cousin Celebrimbor’s mother, he decided that his usual tactic of making incredibly valuable jewelry for her was not enough and he decided he must  _ serenade  _ her. You, of course, never had the pleasure of hearing Curufin sing, but I assure you it was no more beautiful than the sound Celegorm’s velociraptor made. Nonetheless, being supportive, I lent him my rebec, gave him plenty of brandy to fortify his courage, and went along with him to lovely Lindë’s home, where he proceeded to climb the tree next to her window and attempt to start his serenade.”

“And did she like his singing?”

“Alas, we never found out. Upon seeing a strange male face at her window, as well as hearing the first note he screeched, Lindë assume he was some sort of wraith and was so overcome with fright that she reached out and pushed him off the tree onto the hard ground below.  _ He  _ was unhurt, but my poor rebec was smashed to pieces, and naturally I told him that if he didn’t purchase or craft me a new one within a week I would personally go to Lindë’s home and sing her a song about how he sucked his thumb until he was twelve. And of course I had a new rebec in three days and Curufin made Lindë a beautiful necklace and they were married in five years, which goes to show that when attempting to win someone’s heart you must stick with what you know.”

 

“Your uncles Amrod and Amras were very nearly identical, to the point where almost no one could tell them apart when they first met them. Amrod had very slightly darker hair, and Amras had more freckles, but these aren’t the sort of details most people would notice at first sight. Being the rascals they were, they would use this only for evil. I remember one particular evening we were at some grand party thrown by Indis’ Vanyarin relatives, and there was one young cousin of hers—I can never remember his name, I’ll simply have to call him Laure—who was one of those stiff and proper types, and so of course the twins felt they simply had to humiliate him.”

“How did they do it?”

“Simply put, they decided to convince him that there was only one rather than two of them. Amras would engage Laure in a conversation, expressing strong opinions on one subject or another, and then excuse himself to the lavatory or to fetch a drink. Amrod would then replace him, pretending to be Amras, and would continue the conversation with Laure, expressing an entirely  _ different  _ set of opinions and rebuking Laure harshly for contradicting him. They managed to pull off at least four of these switches, until the poor lad was nearly in tears. Being a compassionate chap, I went over to him and asked if my brothers had been bothering him, to which he replied, ‘Brothers? I’ve only met but the one of them, and he’s the most contrary fellow I ever met! He tells me he thinks Vanyarin poetry is beautiful, and I agree with him, only to have him return a minute later and tell me all poetry is rubbish and I’m a fool for thinking otherwise! I hope your other five brothers are calmer, or I’ll be deeply sorry for your parents.’”

“Did you tell him what the twins had done, then?”

“And humiliate him? Of course not. I simply grabbed Amras by the scruff of his neck, dragged him over to Laure, and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry one of my youngest brothers annoyed you, but this is my  _ other  _ youngest brother, the most agreeable boy in Aman. You won’t get any contrary remarks from him.” And I forced him and Amrod to spend the rest of the evening switching back and forth again, this time agreeing with every dull thing Laure said. They didn’t pull that trick again in a hurry, I can tell you.”

 

“And what about you, Father?” Elros asked. “Surely you got into a few scrapes as a youngster.”

“I did no such thing, and frankly I’m offended that you would imply as such, laddie.”

“Ah, but he did,” Uncle Maedhros put in with a rare smile. “I don’t suppose I’ve told you boys about the time that we all went to one of the seedier pubs in Lower Tirion and your dear father decided it was the perfect moment to debut that new song he’d written—what was the one, Maglor? It was the same tune as that hymn to Varda, ‘Ten Thousand Years and More’, but of course you’d changed all the lyrics so they were incredibly rude. What did you call it, again? Something like ‘Ten Thousand Beers and I’m Yours’? And wouldn’t you know it, who was in the pub but the director of the palace choir, possibly the most proper and pious lady in all of Tirion...”

“I think,” Father interrupted quickly, “that it is  _ high  _ time we put the boys to bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> The "Valinor has dinosaurs" headcanon is something I absolutely blame Tumblr for and that I have absolutely adopted.


End file.
